


Firelight

by saberteeth



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Porn, Dubious Consent, Eiffel Tower, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Gratuitous Uses of Ellipses and Em Dashes, Implied/Referenced Drugging/Kidnapping, M/M, Mentions of Past Rape/Torture/Abuse, Multi, Not Quite Mindbreak, Oral Sex, Scar Worship, Size Difference, Strap-Ons, Threesome - F/M/M, deadnaming, mentions of past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:01:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25022101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saberteeth/pseuds/saberteeth
Summary: “It’s been a long time,” is all he says, but Caleb feels the warmth in Eodwulf’s voice despite the chastising tone. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, what they’ve all been through, it’s – there’s a bond there that will never go away, despite everything. When you’ve shared the darkest parts of yourself with someone, when you’ve given over that piece of your heart, nothing quite feels like home except each other. Like three puzzle pieces slotting into place. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”“But you want this,” Astrid says. “We know you do. Why deny yourself this pleasure?”“I don’t deserve it.”“I think we know what you deserve far better than you do.”
Relationships: Astrid/Eodwulf/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 6
Kudos: 50





	Firelight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mpdghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mpdghoul/gifts).



> HI OKAY SO. I have never watched or listened to Critical Role. This fic was part of a private exchange between friends and written for a dear friend who wanted some Astrid/Eodwulf/Caleb "trauma throuple, tender, but make it sinister and fucky."
> 
> Everything here I got from reading some wiki articles and watching a few videos about Caleb's backstory. So sorry if this doesn't quite make sense with the canon timeline...just consider it an AU story!
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing about this sad wizard boy!! Also I wanted there to be a native language that the three of them spoke (my friend informed me that there is one in canon) so I just used German.
> 
> Ok, enjoy!

He comes awake slowly, keeping his eyes shut while he revels in the last dregs of sleep before waking up to start another day. It’s warm, wherever he is, feels like there’s a fire burning and the blankets laying over his body are soft, fur, certainly not anything like his usual spare coverings. Where is he sleeping, anyway? An inn? He thinks back to the night before, he had seen...seen  _ her, _ seen  _ him, _ and then he had gone to take a walk, and –

His eyes fly open and he sits up straight, ready to leap out of bed and fingertips itching to cast.

He looks around the room wildly – for him, anyway, to an onlooker they would just see very rapid eye movement – assesses the surroundings. No one is in here with him – did he pass out, did the Nein find him and take him back to where they’re staying or –

“Hello, Bren.”

“It’s Caleb,” is his automatic reaction before he can even process that he’s...in a room with Astrid? Somewhere with Astrid, or...this is her house, maybe? His head feels dazed.

“Not today,” she says, and the smile on her face looks too caring for these words laced with...something Caleb can’t place. He wants to say  _ venom, _ but she sounds a little too sweet for that, he wants to say  _ saccharine ichor, _ but she sounds a little too sincere for that...but something..something is wrong.

“Why have you brought me here?” he asks, and as Astrid crosses the room to sit on the other side of the bed with a soft  _ fwump, _ he is made haltingly aware of the way the soft coverings on top of him slip down his naked chest.

_ His naked chest. _

“Did you undress me?” he demands, softly.

“Just wanted to help you out of those oppressive layers,” she says simply. “I keep my fires stoked, didn’t want you to sweat through that coat.”

“Right.”

“You can say thank you for the hospitality, Bren. After all, I mean...we’re partners, aren’t we?”

“It’s Caleb.”

“With me, it will always be Bren.”

He decides to stop trying to correct her. It’s not worth it – she’s clearly made her mind up. And it’s kind of nice, anyway, to her that name from her voice again. Reminds him of a different time. For everything that had been horrible – flames licking up hallways, crystals breaking through sinews, voice trembling as he used his magic on a man much older than his teenaged self, condemning him for crimes against an empire that he had  _ truly _ believed in – there was also washing each other’s backs from the bleeding whip marks, hands ghosting softly in the dark over gooseflesh, a flush spreading through his entire bloodstream with praise when he learned a new spell, and replacing the memories of Trent’s hand on his cock with a larger one, with a softer one.

“Partners?” he asks, voice low. “From how I remember it, we were always a trio.”

“So we were,” comes a new voice, and Caleb jumps, hurrying to snatch the covers up before they drop and show the cinnamon-colored hair crawling up onto his stomach and the tip of his cock which is, Caleb notes, painfully hard. It’s not Astrid, he assures himself. It’s not Eodwulf, who made his cock stand at attention like this, it’s just an unfavorable side effect of being woken up abruptly. He’s done this before when having to share a sleeping roll with Fjord, or Jester, there’s nothing special about it.

“So we were,” agreed Astrid.

“Eodwulf,” Caleb says, trying to make it sound like a greeting, but it sounds like he’s choking, like something is stuck in his throat. He hates this. This isn’t the image he wants to present. Not when the last thing they remember is him being carted off to a Sanatorium. He’s not that person anymore. He’s not. He’s Caleb Widogast, part of the Mighty Nein.

“How goes things,  _ Caleb?” _ he says, and at least he’ll use the correct name, but it sounds so...mocking? Sinister? Tender? Caleb doesn’t know, hates that he can’t place the intentions behind these words.

“I still don’t know why you’ve brought me here.”

“He doesn’t know,” coos Astrid, turning to look at Eodwulf, and suddenly, Caleb realizes that it’s still dark outside, must be the middle of the night. The fire to the right of him lights the scar running down Astrid’s face, making it appear much deeper than it is. Like a cavern.

“You don’t know why we brought you here,  _ mein Feuerlicht?” _

The old endearment rolls off of this tongue as naturally as flexing one's fingers to cast a simple cantrip. Caleb can’t help the shiver that runs down his spine, he feels sick with how much he likes this. He was  _ over this. _

That’s what he told himself at night anyway, laying on his sleeping roll or cot or wherever else, trying not to think of his first lovers, his real lovers, not Trent, and this is what he tells himself when he takes himself in hand during the small hours and bites his lip to keep from crying out and tastes salt over his tongue.

“I know you brought me to a Sanatorium, but I’m not crazy. I can tell why you took me, undressed me.”

Eodwulf kicks the door shut and comes around to sit on the bed between Astrid and Caleb. He’s so large, blocking out Caleb’s view of Astrid. He was always the biggest of the three, that’s only remained true and gotten more poignant in the years since. Caleb is not a small man by any means, but Eodwulf is hulking beside him, and he longs to feel those hands run down his arms again, to cup around his chest and his cock, to make him feel...warm, protected, loved. Like they were in this together.

For too long, the feeling of guilt for using the Nein had weighed on him. Wouldn’t it be easier to just...sink back to where he belonged? He wants that.

No – no he doesn’t. He had left that in the past.

“You do, do you?” asks Astrid, reaching across Eodwulf to run a hand down his cheek. A calloused hand; she still carried out work despite the comfortable life that working for the empire had afforded her.

He shivered.

“Yes, I – I assume you want to. To do what we used to.”

Eodwulf laughs. “You can say fuck, Caleb.”

“It’s been a long time,” is all he says, but Caleb feels the warmth in Eodwulf’s voice despite the chastising tone. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, what they’ve all been through, it’s – there’s a bond there that will never go away, despite everything. When you’ve shared the darkest parts of yourself with someone, when you’ve given over that piece of your heart, nothing quite feels like home except each other. Like three puzzle pieces slotting into place.

“Let us feel you,” says Astrid, crawling over Eodwulf to paw at the comforter and run a hand down his body, to his cock, already red and aching. “Let us take care of you. Lay down, and let us remind you of old times.”

Eodwulf easily moves out of the way, standing up like they’d practiced this, while Astrid maneuvers Caleb around and presses him down with a steady hand on his shoulder. He stares at her tattoos while he lays back, hates thinking about how right this feels. This is where he was always meant to be, laid down between the two shards of his soul. They treated him like he was something to be revered despite all of the rotting on those shards, despite the darkness and the sins of his past.

They too, had committed atrocities. They understood him.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” asks Eodwulf, unlacing his trousers and pulling his cock out of his smallclothes, stroking with a dumb grin on his face. His cock is so large, Caleb wants to feel it against his own.

“He feels perfect,” says Astrid, smiling, and Caleb can’t help but return a small grin. His face feels tight as his lips pull against his cheeks, just slightly. He hasn’t been able to genuinely manage this expression in so long, even as strained and small as this, but as Astrid runs a fingertip over the scars on his forearms, begins kissing down them reverently, he can’t help it. It feels so good to finally have them be looked upon with admiration instead of pity. As a mark of survival, not proof of the way he’s been tainted. “Just like old times.”

She grinds against his crotch and he imagines he can feel the wetness through her skirt, reaches a hand up to rest against her chest, thumbing there. Gods, but this is so wrong. They kidnapped him,  _ drugged _ him. He shouldn’t be going along with this.

But as Astrid shimmies out of her blouse and guides his hand back to squeeze around her dusty pink nipple, his mind blanks out, and he can’t quite think about what’s so bad. He just knows that he shouldn’t. He has to protest, if he doesn’t put up a fight then...then he wanted this, and he’ll have betrayed the people who have become his friends even more. He is not a good person.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“But you want this,” Astrid says. “We know you do. Why deny yourself this pleasure?”

“I don’t deserve it.”

“I think we know what you deserve far better than you do.”

That’s Eodwulf, taking Astrid’s place, and Caleb feels so small beneath him, so small as he takes both their cocks in hand, rutting against them. He’s just over half the size, half the thickness of Eodwulf’s, and he gulps thinking about feeling it inside of him. Inside of him, where he's just had three other people before, and two of them are in this room. He must be so tight. It’s going to hurt.

“Please, no, don’t do this. I don’t want this,” he whimpers, because he has to. It’s what’s right, he’s being a traitor.

“Mmmm, I think you do,” says Astrid. “Look how flushed and hard you are, against Eodwulf. This is where you belong, Bren, and I think you know it.”

“Caleb,” he says automatically again.

“You know,” says Eodwulf, “I indulged that at first, but looking at you now, lying beneath us, being the empire’s bitch...it’s only right you use the name that it provided you. How far you’ve fallen, to give up your name, your life, everything the empire provided for you. Shouldn’t you be grateful?”

“That’s not who I am anymore.”

“Oh, I think it is,” Astrid insists, and when he wrenches his eyes back open he sees her standing to the left of Eodwulf, contraption around her hips with a stone dick attached. He knows what these are, even though when they’d laid together in the past it had been nothing but her fingers and her cunt. God’s he can feel heat rush through him at the site of it, and he  _ doesn’t want this. _

“It is,” says Eodwulf. “He’s leaking already. Come on,  _ kleines Feuerlicht, _ you look beautiful in your namesake. The flames are dancing against you, just like they used to.”

Caleb jerks, letting out an involuntary moan when Eodwulf’s tongue dips down to lick at his slit at the end of that statement. He’s sure that he’s referring to their times camping together, laying beside the fire and whispering while Trent slept, but to Caleb, all he can hear are his mother and father’s screams as orange and blue licked the walls in their tyranny.

“Turn over,  _ Liebling,” _ coaxes Astrid, and with Eodwulf’s large hands moving him, he can’t help but comply. Why did he try to protest this?

“Think you can take us both?” Eodwulf’s breath is hot on his cheek, and then it’s replaced by his cock knocking against it before he can even answer, dragging down and leaving a trail of precum before poking at his lips. Caleb obediently opens his mouth. He doesn’t deserve their love, but he does deserve to be used by this, to be reminded of his place in the empire...or...something, he can’t quite think right, not when Astrid has a finger in his ass, sawing in and out with the help of an oil that smells of roses and musk.

“He can,” Astrid says assertively. “We’ll fill him up, give the little prodigy his reward. It’s not everyday one as young as you makes it into the academy, is it?”

Caleb doesn’t answer, can’t, not with Eodwulf’s girth inside of his mouth which his lips struggle to stretch around. He’s not that person, he’s not Bren, Trent’s prodigy, tool of the empire, he’s Caleb, he’s  _ Caleb, _ he’s his own person. Isn’t he?

“That’s true,” says Eodwulf. “Gods, you feel so good around me, come on, take it, take what the empire gives you.”

He’s moving his hips in and out rapidly and Caleb wants to gag but he scrunches his eyes shut and takes it because Eodwulf is right. Some part of him will always be a pawn of the empire, as long as he holds feelings for his lovers. And he always will.

“Brings back memories, doesn’t it?” asks Astrid without waiting for an answer. In his desperation to take Eodwulf he hadn’t realized she’d gotten three fingers in him, the sensations too overwhelming, but now, with her cock entering him, it’s all he can feel, and tears involuntarily roll down his cheeks. He can taste salt, but that might just be Eodwulf, he doesn’t know. Gods, it’s so much.

“You’re beautiful,” says Eodwulf. “Beautiful, perfect between us. We know what’s best for you,  _ meine Liebe.” _

“We want to take care of you,” agrees Astrid, repeating her earlier words. There’s a sinister edge to it, the way she sounds so sure, but still it’s...tender. Comforting. He sinks into it, and it feels natural. As natural as the magic coursing through his veins, as the stars in the sky, as the blood pooling at the tip of his cock,  _ yes, _ this is where he’s meant to be. They want him, and he loves them, this is how it will always be. As the world moves by, the three of them will always come back to each other. Right?

They saw in and out of him like a perfectly oiled machine, and they are, aren’t they? Eodwulf’s hand strokes his hair gently, not pulling, just tender, and Caleb sighs into it, feeling the hips of both of them stuttering as Eodwulf groans and spills into his mouth, the cum running down his throat with a heat that rivals the fire beside him. Behind him, he hears Astrid cry out, imagines he can feel her spill inside of him too. He wants to taste her cunt, it must be so wet, now. And  _ he _ did that. The thought of it has him whimpering through his own orgasm, a buzzing spread throughout every inch of his skin and bones, feeling it to the marrow. He’s on fire. They coax him through it with their soothing words.

He slumps forward as they both pull out and they curl around him, feeling sated and strangely, loved.

“That was beautiful, Bren,” Astrid says, pressing a kiss to the back of his neck.

This time, he doesn’t correct her.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, a comment or a kudos is always appreciated! <3


End file.
